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New London ct
Nov 13th
Dear Freand
Walt
I take the liberty to write you a few lines hoping to find you well as I am at present I hope that you will excuse
me fore not writing to you before but you know how it is your self but
I write you these few lines to let you know were I am Walt you know
wat good times Petter1 and your
selfe
and me had together Walt how is Harry2 my Boy I hope that he is well I have wrote to him
severl time and have not
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Receved no answer as yet but you must tell him that you have
herd from me and give my love to him and take a good share
fore your self give my love to all the Boys on the Rail Road as
fore mr sailor3 tell him
fore
me to go to the D. and so forth Walt I want you to write to me as soon as you get this you must excuse my writing
fore I am in a hurry tell Harry Parmenter to write
to me so good by
From your Freand
George D Cole
Walt direct your letters to me George D Cole Tottenville Staten Island in care of
Capt JW Sprague4
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how is old car no 29 my old car I have just come from
Provedence . we had to put in to new london fore
a Harbor fore it is a low Blowing a gail
of wind I am a sailor now and have been fore a year she is a nice
schooner you Bet
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Walt I wr[torn away]5
Geo. D. Cole
Correspondent:
George D. Cole was
a former train conductor and a friend of Whitman's close friend and lover Peter Doyle (1843–1907).
Notes
- 1. Peter Doyle (1843–1907) was
one of Walt Whitman's closest comrades and lovers, and their friendship spanned
nearly thirty years. The two met in 1865 when the twenty-one-year-old Doyle was
a conductor in the horsecar where the forty-five-year-old Whitman was a
passenger. Despite his status as a veteran of the Confederate Army, Doyle's
uneducated, youthful nature appealed to Whitman. Although Whitman's stroke in
1873 and subsequent move from Washington to Camden limited the time the two
could spend together, their relationship rekindled in the mid-1880s after Doyle
moved to Philadelphia and visited nearby Camden frequently. After Whitman's
death, Doyle permitted Richard Maurice Bucke to publish the letters Whitman had
sent him. For more on Doyle and his relationship with Whitman, see Martin G.
Murray, "Doyle, Peter," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia,
ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing,
1998). [back]
- 2. Cole may be referring to Harry H. Parmenter (1843–1911), a clerk
in the War Department in Washington, D.C., whom he mentions later in the letter. [back]
- 3. As yet we have no information about
this person. [back]
- 4. John Wilson Sprague (1817–1892) was a General in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
He was also a railroad executive for the Northern Pacific Railway and co-founded the city of Tacoma, Washington. [back]
- 5. This partial phrase appears on the verso of the last page of the letter. [back]